Trekking America - Living Loosely in Vegas...

Vegas, Vegas, Vegas.... bright lights, pretty ladies (envy) and Shows! Pretty much covers it all. The next 3 days in Vegas has seen the terrible two getting the 'cultural' side of Vegas. First show on the agenda was Jubilee! And what a show it was. Think feathers, think bling, think nice bums and lots of boobies. Man that show is a must see, if not, just for the costumes. Interesting fact:

* One girls headpiece weighs 35 pounds (approx 15kgs) and the rest of her costume can fit in a teacup!

The following day we caught up with Trevor and Brad, two friends of Heidi's that worked on the Sea Princess with her. After a brief catch up lunch it was straight to Steiners bar for 2 for 1's. Serena still can't believe that she got a Vodka and Ginger Ale for $1 each. Think she was in heaven! A special thanks to Brad for helping us with our quest to find the elusive Vegemite... he took us to the British shop but it seems that the stuff is so popular that they had run out. I couldn't help but notice that there were still plenty of bottles of Marmite on the shelf though... figures!

That night the road led us down the Parisian path (we are staying in Paris hotel) to the Napolean bar with the Dueling Pianos. $2 tip gets a request but doesn't get a guarantee of being played if out tipped by $5, $10 or even $20. 2 people each sitting at their own pianos each there to outplay the next. Before you know it, it's 1am finishing time. Awesome entertainment and oh so funny as well.

Yesterday saw us walking down the strip in 40 degree + heat into each Casino foyer, to check out the very distinctive themes of each place. We headed into Excalibur with it's Kings and Knights them, Luxor with it's Egyptian theme, MGM Grand with it real Lions, New York New York - say no more but best of all, we headed into the 4 levels of the MM store. Our dream land! Red and Yellow were there and even agreed to a photo with us.

Excalibur Hotel/Casino

No Serena, we're not in Egypt this time!

Red get's friendly with Heidi

Yellow is trying to remember his long lost friend Serena

A night later, it was time again for bright lights and the fan fare of 'The Strip'. We hit the town in our Sunday bests, even though it was Tuesday. All dolled up and looking spunky we went to visit the erupting Volcano at the Mirage but our stomachs cried out and to SushiSamba we went. This is a funky fab restaurant in the middle of the Palazzo in the Venetian. All we can say is YUMMO and a very nice change from the sugar overload that we are currently experiencing.

The erupting volcano at the Mirage..

Sexy ladies at SushiSamba!

Cirque du Soleil: Mystere..... this was our next cultural experience held at Treasure Island. Under the guise of being a 'Travel Agent' (partly true, didn't mention that we were now unemployed bums!) we managed to get great seats at half price. The show was a spectacle of colour, purely amazing man strength, gymnastic prowess, high flying trapezers and a hint of comedy.

Today we meet with our tour group from Trek America with a stretch limo ride preview for tonight to Freemont Street and then further into the desert we will head....

Life of the rich and famous!

Stretch Hummer tour in Vegas!!!!!

The Gang lives it up in the stretch....

Our own private stretch hummer

Yeah baby!

Is that someone famous? A model possibly?!!

Fremont Street

Fremont Street lazer show on the ceiling - Queen (We Will Rock You)

H and S

Las Vegas Baby Yeah!

Friday night saw us in the Kitchen making home made pasta by Executive Chef Nick Araya. Flour abounded, eggs were flying and the recipe was adlib - and turned out perfectly! Left to dry, we headed to the best shop in the world REI - Recreational Equipment Inc! Well, Serena thought it was the best shop in the world. Purchased included 1x LARGE self inflating camping matress, 2x small self inflating pillows red/blue, 2 pairs of outdoor walking, swimming, everything shoes, 1x pack of 4 mini bungey cords... and 1x 15 ml outdoor environmentally friendly soap (for Nick cos he smells!).

Kneading the pasta.... tougher than it looks!

Mixing it all in..... my fave job!

Our instructor Nick, shows us the 'proper technique' to flouring the pasta.

Serena squishes the pasta to the perfect thickness!

Heidi flours the pasta and ensures the right sound affects go with the action...

After our successful mission the night before, we packed all our gear into our poor overloaded bags into Karina's poor overloaded VW Golf and headed for Beverly Hills... via Rosco's Chicken and Waffles (????) for Breakfast. Yup that's waffles and chicken for breakfast - welcome to LA!


The Infamous Roscos!

Serena and Heidi opted for the waffles only and after feeling somewhat ill from all the maple syrup and smell of greaseyness in the air we were off to Rodeo drive to walk it off. We met the Ambassador of Beverly Hills who swore that he was friends with Jules Lund from Getaway, Jennifer Hawkins and Sophie Monk... people, I think we have a name dropper! Heading into several no named shops such as Gucci, Guess, Tiffany and Co etc we created our own entertainment (which soon also became many shop assistant's entertainment) by playing the Price is Right. IE Rules: Select the article in question, everyone takes a guess at the price, ask a shop assistant the real price and see who get's the closest. The male assistant in Gucci indulged us greatly and even took us in to show us the most expensive item. However, the most expensive item found on Rodeo Drive was not the jewellery at cost of $33,900 plus tax, it was the Lladro ceramic statue of the Queen of the Nile at a cost of $150,000. That thing was so ugly, they couldn't have paid me $150,000 to take it away!

Look! Famous People! Oh no, that's just Nick, Heidi and Serena.

Mmmmm Cupcakes at Sprinkles....

Serena found her new car.....

The Ambassador for Beverly Hills.... he added us to his list of names of famous people he'd met

We then decided that we were too classy for this area so decided to head to the World Famous = American Famous Sprinkles Cup Cake Bakery. However, considering the breakfast had at Roscos, Serena and Heidi decided to purchase a Dark Chocolate and a Coconut Cup Cake each and save it for later. This was then followed by a personal tour of the Beverly Hills Houses, average cost $4m US and a drive/walk up to the best look out location for the Hollywood sign at Hollywood Land Camp Ground. Thrown into this tour, was a walk through the original 'Bat Cave' created for the first Batman film.

Hollywood!!!

By this time, it was time to head to Olympic Street East to catch our bus to Las Vegas - yes Nick, that's Olympic Street EAST not West where we ended up. Wrong end of town! A mad dash and several phone calls later, we ended up on the dodgey side of town just in time for our bus pick up. Thanks heaps to Nick and Karina for their wonderful hospitality, laughs and kindness. But Vegas waits for no man..... nor two Aussies either!

So once settled on the bus, we looked around and realised that we were the only native English speakers on the bus... this could have been due to the fact that we only paid $30 for our ticket whereas if we'd gone with Greyhound, it was $80 and had mostly international backpackers onboard. We are the true local travellers! Rolling through the desert and into Barstow, CA it seemed like a makeshift town inside a trailer simply for a pee stop between LA and Las Vegas. Stepping off the bus, we were hit by a wall of heat - dry heat. Wow like 40 degree heat! 2 hrs later we lumbered past the MGM, Paris, Caesars Palace and Circus Circus and stopped at the Stratosphere. Checking into our hotel at Paris was like stepping into a part of Europe. We then tarted ourselves up, headed into town and only made it as far as Mon Ami Gabi for dinner - inside the Paris Casino area! Steak and Fritz yummo! Catching a glimpse of the beautiful and majestic musical water fountains on the Strip we then headed home to prepare for a few days of craziness in Las Vegas.....

The Aussies Hit Vegas - our hotel in the background: Paris

Our Hotel - Paris Las Vegas

The 'musical and light fountain show' at the Belaggio - so beautiful!

H and S

Universal Days and Dodger Nights

Having survived the LA bus system, and working it like a pro, we found ourselves at Universal Studios on day 3 of our trip. Today 2 became 3 when we met up with our new Adelaidian friend Deani who had the great fortune of sitting next to us on the plane trip from Fiji to LA and happened to be staying in the area for a few days. So we trapsed off into the Univers-al Studios. Whilst waiting oh-so-patiently in the queue we spotted our first Celeb... Wayne Brady from Who's Line is it Anyway and American Singing Bee.

Serena, being our tactical planner for the day, directed us in the area at the back of the park. Good thinking - less people in the queues! So Jurassica Park it was, as it was also WET! We got drenched right through to our knickers! In order to dry off from our first adventure, we headed to the Mummy ride. No mum, this is not one that was designed to make kids pick up their clothes, wipe their hands etc but it is the Mummy from Egypt. We decided that this was our favourite ride so far although Deani looked a little green at first. Other things seen were Shrek 4D (3D 10 minute show where the seats move, you get sprayed with small amounts of Donkey snot and feel ghosts on your shoulder) and the stunt cars from the Fast and Furious - see the video link below for performance.

Our last but not least thing to do was to take the 1 hr studio tour by open air bus. We saw the 'shed' where many films were produced but the best was trundling through the sets and streets of such scenes as Wisteria Lane (Desperate Housewives), Bates Hotel (Psycho), total devastation scene from War of the Worlds, Jaws, and got the full run down of the changing of scenes and sets used from one movie to the next. After pepperoni pizza, nacho cheese fries, hamburgers and plenty of Churros we headed home on the 8:30pm bus - like pros! What a day - sooooo much fun.

The Celebs hit the red carpet

Deani and Heidi get stuck into the Churros

Watch out for the Donkey Snot!

Dudu dudu dududududududu - SHARK!

Carlos and Gabby's House on Wisteria Lane

We covered almost the entire park

The Fast and Furious Cars perform at their best

After a lazy day crashed at Nick and Karina's, Nick came home in the late afternoon and introduced us to the world of STUBHUB.com. This is the BEST website in the world! Ok maybe a bit of exaggeration but still it is great. This site is where you can buy discounted tickets to any sporting/concert event in the US at discounted rates as people are wanting to sell ones that they previously bought and no longer want - legitimately. So on we went and purchased seats for the Dodgers game that night at what we thought was a bargain... $50 each in row 7 oh so close! It wasn't till we got there that we realised how good these seats REALLY were. Not only were they close, they were in box seating and included ALL FOOD!!!!! And of course we took advantage of this fact and even had 2 serves of icecream... well Serena did! The night was topped off by the fact that the Dodgers won. Great entertainment and much to Nick's and Serena's disappointment, no flyballs headed close enough to us to catch them however Karina and Heidi were ready to duck really fast!

The best seats EVER!!!

Serena doing it true American Style with a hot dog and Bud Beer...

Dodgers score a home run and the crowd goes wild!!!!!

Dodgers Win!!! Yeahhhh!!!!

The Stadium at dusk...



And thus ends another couple of fun filled days and nights in LA until tomorrow....

H and S

LA Metro Survival Skills

Touch down!!! Well the Aussies have safely landed in LA, CA, USA. Minus much sleep and all dried out we made it to Nick and Karina's place in Inglewood LA feeling glad to be 'home'.

Up early on day one we headed into Santa Monica. The morning with a STRONG coffee at Cafe Urth (coolest cafe) and we wondered along the Ocean Walk towards the Santa Monica Pier. The weather was clear nd a balmy 23 degrees (bloody freezing in the shade mind you!) The day was spent just wondering the streets, hanging out on street corners.... trying to read the map for directions that is! After our fill of people watching we decided to head home on the bus. Now... this might seem like just an ordinary event, but... after much research and asking the man at the counter at the bus terminal, we were none the wiser. So the LA bus system has much to answer for. It's just rediculous! There's the Big Blue Bus, the Metro red and orange buses, the red line Metro not to get confused with the Metro bus as it it's the train, the Metro Link, not to get confused with the Metro Bus or the Metro Train as it is the underground Metro. Can you see our confusion? Hmmmm...... so after 4 hours we managed to finally get home on a trip that should have taken approx 30 mins by car. However, we are now pros and can get on and off like we live here. Any assistance just call Serena or Heidi on 555.....

Today has been all about Hollywood baby! Oh and sleep. After a much needed late sleep in till midday we found our way to the bus stop and got on the correct bus that took us to Hollywood. The next 4 hours was spent wondering up and down the Hollywood walk of Fame, visiting Madam Tussaud's Wax museum and generally playing tourist taking many photos of famous things (see photos below). Serena got to catch up with her old mate Cameron and even shared a good joke and I got to experience one of my all time dreams of touching and seeing Hugh Jackmans muscles up close and personal - even if they were made of wax, its the best I'm gunna get! So after yet another successful bus trip, we made it home and tonight we're off to Sunset strip to see some of the live stand up comedians.

Hasta Manana, H and S

Interesting facts discovered today:
1) In LA the Metro = bus or train or subway - your guess is as good as ours
2) In the USA most avadocados are produced in California and they heavily monitor the water to oil ratio inorder to produce the creamiest avocados and creamy they are!
3) The crosswalks don't go 'piuw' when they turn green to walk, so we are finding it very difficult having to concentrate on watching the green walk sign and other stuff around us!






'I'm gunna make him an offer he can't refuse, Godfather'

Serena and her gal pal share a 'moment'

Julia and Serena just chillin

Pierce Brosnan...mmmmmm

Who's funnier?

Heidi and Jack N discussing the meaning of life?

Check out those hunky arms!!!

Don't mind if I do thanks Forrest.... I particularly like the cherry ripe ones....

Shrek-tastic!

Serena checking out Santa Monica Pier

Bebero Coffee!!! Double shot espresso with condensed milk

Wakey wakey... enjoying a SMALL size coffee